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California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Tuesday at a press conference in Colfax announced he would propose spending $305 million for new equipment to reduce wildfire risk in California. (Photo: Governor’s Office)

Wading into one of California’s most difficult problems on his first full day on the job, Gov. Gavin Newsom on Tuesday announced he will propose $305 million in new funding as part of his first state budget later this week to expand the state’s ability to fight wildfires and better alert residents of impending disasters.

Speaking at a news conference in the Sierra foothills community of Colfax, Newsom noted that 167 people have died and more than 33,000 structures have been lost in the past two years in California due to disasters, primarily massive wildfires.

“We are stepping up our game,” Newsom said. “I hear you. I get it. We need to do more and do better. These last two years have been devastating.”

Newsom said that in his first proposed state budget, scheduled to be released on Thursday, he will include money for: retrofitting Blackhawk helicopters and C-130 airplanes acquired from the Air Force to use in firefighting; creating five new California Conservation Corps crews to thin forests and create fuel breaks; funding 13 new engines to place in fire-prone areas; providing more money for communications systems to warn the public, particularly seniors and others when evacuations are needed; and setting up 100 infrared cameras, positioned in high-risk areas of the state, to spot fires early.

“It’s clear to me a lot more needs to be done,” Newsom said.

With Gov. Jay Inslee of Washington and Kate Brown of Oregon, Newsom also sent a letter to President Trump on Tuesday asking for the federal government to double its funding for fire prevention efforts in national forests in the three states. More than half of all forest land in California is federally owned, and funding for thinning and controlled burn projects to reduce fire risks in those areas has been cut by the Trump administration, Newsom noted, even as Trump has criticized California for not doing more.

“The vast majority of what you see behind you is federal land,” Newsom said, pointing to forests in the distance. “And they have cut their budget by $2 billion in the last few years to make sure the land is healthier. And yet we are being attacked.”

Newsom also said that he plans to support efforts to create “a modest” fee to modernize the state’s 911 system, which will require a two-thirds vote in the state Legislature. He plans to work on it next year, and if approved would take effect in 2020.

Last August, Democratic lawmakers in Sacramento, backed by former Gov. Jerry Brown, attempted to pass a surcharge of between 20 cents and 80 cents a month on land line and cell phone bills to pay to modernize the state’s 911 system, much of which was built in the 1980s. Experts say that an updated system would allow parents of missing children to send data, like photos, to 911 dispatch centers, and would harden the system in wildfires and other disasters. But the effort failed in the closing days of the session.

Newsom on Tuesday also defended Trump at one point, saying that when the president visited Butte County in November and drew widespread derision for saying that fire risk could be reduced by ‘raking and cleaning’ the forest floors, he was referring to cutting vegetation in ‘defensible space’ around homes, something that is widely embraced by firefighters.

“I know some folks made light of raking,” Newsom said. “I think he was talking about defensible spaces, which has a role to play.”

Newsom continued former governor Brown’s message, supported by the state’s scientific community, that climate change is raising temperatures, drying out vegetation and making wildfires worse.

“Look, it goes without saying the hots are getting hotter, the dries are getting drier, the wets are getting wetter,” he said. “You may call it climate change, you may call it global warming, you may call it as someone recently did, global weirding.

“The fact is, the climate is changing and we need to change with it.”

An inauguration benefit concert over the weekend that Newsom helped organize in Sacramento raised $5 million for victims of the Camp Fire in Butte County.

Newsom also announced Tuesday he will reappoint the main emergency and law enforcement agency directors that served in the administration of Gov. Jerry Brown. They are Office of Emergency Services (Cal OES) Director Mark Ghilarducci, California National Guard Adjutant General David Baldwin, and California Highway Patrol Commissioner Warren Stanley. Newsom also said he is appointed Thomas Porter as director the Cal Fire. Porter has been serving as acting director following the retirement of previous director Ken Pimlott.